Send Your Name to Space on NASA’s Latest Mars Lander

Humans may not reach Mars until the 2030s (optimistically), but you can get your name there a whole lot sooner. As Space.com reports, NASA is accepting names from the public to be engraved on a small silicon microchip that’s being sent into space with their latest Mars lander, InSight.

Loading...

All you have to do is submit your name online to NASA, and the space agency will put it on the lander—in super-tiny form, of course—which will set off for Mars in May 2018.

This is the public’s second shot at getting their name to Mars: NASA first put out a call for names to go to the Red Planet with InSight in 2015. The planned 2016 launch was delayed over an issue with one of the instruments, and since the naming initiative was so popular—almost 827,000 people submitted their names the first time around—they decided to open the opportunity back up and add a second microchip.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin

NASA is encouraging people to sign up even if they’ve sent in their names for other mission microchips. (The space agency also sent 1.38 million names up with Orion’s first test flight in 2014.) You can put your name on both of InSight’s microchips, in other words, as well as any future missions. The agency’s “frequent flyer” program allows you to keep track of every mission to which your name is attached. Interplanetary fame, here you come.

You can submit your name for the InSight mission until November 1 using this form. If you miss the deadline, though, don’t worry too much: You’ll soon be able to submit your name for Exploration Mission-1’s November 2018 launch.